Moving toward the coast - without enough bananas!

OK - it's me, Jungle the Baboon again. Brian's been hogging this blogging thing, but I needed to get on and tell you about today - it's been a rough few days for me! First of all, yesterday while Brian drove and then rode, I was relegated to the floor of the camper. Do you know what you can see from there? NOTHING! So that was lousy. However, this morning I got back into my customary center pocket and rode along through the beautiful ride from Bobbio to Rapallo.

Big mountains separate the two, so that was pretty fun. We rode hard (I rode pretty easily, actually, but you know what I mean) through the first set of mountains to a bridge near our meeting point, where we waited on everyone. You can see the bridge in the picture below, with Peter looking over the edge.
Now, imagine that bridge over a gorge that had a drop of about 500 feet... Imagine me perched perilously in the back pocket of Brian's jersey. Now, imagine him sitting on the edge of the guardrail to wait - terrifying! I was holding on for dear life!! Then, he gets up to quick, and lo and behold - I lost my grip!! I fell... on the ground on the side of the road. But I'm telling you - five more inches could have been tragic!

From there, we heading towards the beach/resort town of Rapallo. The challenge was that there was a major climb between where we were and where we needed to go. SO, up we went! Brian finally had enough food and drink (including bananas, Nurse Sarah!), so he made it up well. I think he was breathing pretty hard at the end - but hey, I was comfortable! Juan came up after a bit as well, and then they both waited... And heard the camper (our "support" vehicle) around the corner. And Mario and Angelo were holding on to it!! Can you believe it? Here's visual evidence of Angelo, but believe me and my monkey eyes - Mario was holding on to the other side...

The view from the top was incredible, and the descent was fun. And terrifying. Thankfully, Brian uses his brakes a bunch (yes, Amanda, he does!!), so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. And now we're here, in the town of Rapallo! You can see Rapallo in the picture below from the top of the mountain - we're right about the center of the picture, I'd say...

So anyway, that's the deal. It was a fun day, and a good climb. Tomorrow we ride the Giro's Thursday time trial course, which should be fun, and then head to Angelo's house in Lucca. On Thursday we have a free day, so I'm hoping we'll get to take a leisure ride to Pisa to see the tower! If we do, you'll hear from me again, hopefully with me in a picture with it! That tower sounds so cool, and Scott told that it was really amazing. And showed me a picture. Or 50.

Bye everyone! We both miss you all a bunch!